Analytics

Tuesday, November 5, 2013

Flashcards for Vocabulary Retention

I recently had a student come to me for some help with the SAT. I hadn't taken the SAT since high school, so I quickly Googled around to see what I could find. One of the helpful sites was ProProfs Sample SAT tests later I was creating a lesson plan for Thank You Ma'm and stumbled accross this quiz. Overall it is a great teaching resource and I am thrilled to have the founder and CEO contribute to my blog with this guest post on how flashcards help students study.

We all know that there are many different ways to get students to practice vocabulary in class, but how should they study at home? This blog will discuss the benefits of flashcards as a studying tool.
Individuals have different objectives when it comes to studying for a test or an exam.
Methods might differ too; while some understand and remember all points, others cram. Whatever be the situation, making studying easier is the common objective of all. Enter flash cards!

However, when it comes to boosting your studying with
flashcards in education, you will probably turn a deaf ear to it, citing
it as hogwash. That is how it is; at every stage in education, the
resourcefulness of flash cards has been underestimated till date. Flash
cards are a great way to memorize, test oneself and remember the answers
and points in both subjective as well as objective exams. Built on the
pillars of rote and memorizing ability, flash cards can be used to teach
anything and everything. Right from basic pre-school concepts to the
highest echelons of the education ladder, flash cards can be extremely
helpful owing to their simplicity and adaptability.

Different Roles of Flashcards:

Boosting your studying with flash cards in education can happen
at any and every stage of it. Flash cards needn’t be only
alphabetical or numerical, they can be pictorial too. Visual flash
cards’ representations can be powerful and leave a
long-lasting imprint on the mind. Pre-school kids can be taught about
the number system, the alphabets, the parts of the human body and the
things around us by simply using flashcards. It will improve their
recognition ability beyond doubt. When you move up through middle
school, whether it is simple mathematics formulae or calculus equations,
chemistry procedures or physics calculations, flash cards are
indispensable. All you need to do is spend time in assembling all
formulae and writing them down, and then your flash-cards are the
one-stop shop for all your revision. Words, spellings and vocabulary can
be enhanced by simply buying a set of flash cards with English words.
Points to a subjective answer and important dates can be jotted down,
making history easy to remember. Language flashcards can contain
translations which will help you in learning the subject. Later in life,
when you are prepping for your entrance exams to get into a university,
flash cards will not only quicken your learning pace but will also help
you memorize better for answering questions quickly, as time is of
essence after all.
As observed above, boosting your studying with flash cards in
education at any point of life in your life is absolutely
plausible.

Still, why use flash cards? You can carry them around
everywhere, and look them up at your convenience. If you do not want to
go through the trouble of making them, simply buy them; they are
affordable. If you make them, the biggest advantage you have is that
they are customized to your needs, and provide you with immense
familiarity when you are studying. Flash cards are helpful in
reinforcing and building all your skills and, above all, are fun. To
those intelligent beings who consider the humble flash cards beneath
them; step up and better your game by using them. Boosting your studying
with flashcards in your education will probably be the best thing you
might have done in your lives.
As for the professors, who can use them in teaching, your
reason for using them is that they appeal to every child on every level;
not all of them are at par. Children with learning disabilities will
find them immensely helpful to further their education and it will give
them a chance to succeed at par with their other mates.

The above said features are all incorporated in an electronic
version of flashcards as well. In addition, it can be shared
with any friends that the student would like to and make flashcards
creatively with a lot of imagination.
Boosting your studying with ProProfs flashcards in education is something that should have happened long ago indeed. The electronic version makes it possible to improve the scope of IT based education in the future.Sameer Bhatia is founder & CEO of ProProfs.com rel="nofollow" which is a leading
provider of online learning tools for building, testing, and applying knowledge. Sameer has a background in technology with a Masters in Computer Science from USC (University Of Southern California) and is an ed-tech industry veteran. You can find Sameer on Google+.